When shipping logs by water it is common practice to form booms wherein a plurality of logs are bound together and confined by boom sticks. Generally there will be a forward boom stick, a pair of side boom sticks and a rear boom stick comprising each log boom. Such boom sticks are usually selected logs having lengths of up to about 66 feet. It is commonly desired that they be capable, without submerging, of carrying a man as he walks along the surface of the boom stick. Commonly boom sticks average about 2 feet in diameter. It will be apparent that such a log contains a significant amount and value of wood. Due to marine bores, decay and mechanical noise, wooden sticks deteriorate and need frequent replacement.
Attempts have been made to provide artificial boom sticks from steel by forming an elongated steel drum of the required length and closing off the ends. Similar artificial boom sticks have been made from hollow concrete sections formed for example by spin casting in a manner similar to that used for forming hollow telephone poles. Obviously the ends of the concrete boom sticks are also capped and the concrete is made non-porous. Neither the steel nor the concrete boom stick have been fully accepted by the industry generally because such boom sticks do not have the characteristics of the wooden boom stick they are intended to replace. Generally artificial boom sticks have been relegated to use in defining the outer periphery of holding areas or corrals for logs and function as the equivalent of the corral fence or gate sections.